GIRDLE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Girdle

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/gˈərdəl/ Listen

noun

Girdle n. A griddle. (Scot. & Prov. Eng.)

Girdle n.

1.

That which girds, encircles, or incloses; a circumference; a belt; esp., a belt, sash, or article of dress encircling the body usually at the waist; a cestus. " Within the girdle of these walls." "Their breasts girded with golden girdles."

2.

The zodiac; also, the equator. (Poetic) "From the world's girdle to the frozen pole." "That gems the starry girdle of the year."

3.

(Jewelry) The line ofgreatest circumference of a brilliant-cut diamond, at which it is grasped by the setting.

4.

(Mining) A thin bed or stratum of stone.

5.

(Zool.) The clitellus of an earthworm.

Girdle bone (Anat.), the sphenethmoid. See under Sphenethmoid.

Girdle wheel, a spinning wheel.

Sea girdle (Zool.), a ctenophore. See Venus's girdle, under Venus.

Shoulder girdle, Pectoral girdle, and Pelvic girdle. (Anat.) See under Pectoral, and Pelvic.

To have under the girdle, to have bound to one, that is, in subjection.

verb

Girdle v. t. (past & past part. girdled; pres. part. girdling)

1.

To bind with a belt or sash; to gird.

2.

To inclose; to environ; to shut in. "Those sleeping stones, That as a waist doth girdle you about."

3.

To make a cut or gnaw a groove around (a tree, etc.) through the bark and alburnum, thus killing it. (U. S.)

See images of 'Girdle'

Etymology of 'Girdle'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Girdle" Quotes from Famous Books

... round and too rosy. The dreadful justice of photography would have had no mercy on her; and the sculptors of classical Greece would have bowed her regretfully out of their studios. Admitting all this, and more, the girdle round Miss Milroy's waist was the girdle of Venus nevertheless; and the passkey that opens the general heart was the key she carried, if ever a girl possessed it yet. Before Allan had picked up his second handful of flowers, Allan ...

— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... combined into one. The column which figures in the relief above the gate is absent from the gem, but is found on another specimen from Mycenae, where the animals, however, are winged griffins. Fig. 41 has only a standing man, of the wasp-waisted figure and wearing the girdle with which other representations have ...

— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... to him was a venerable man with a snowy beard of immense length; an image of awful purity and severity. He was dressed in a coarse robe, with three large keys suspensed from his girdle. He might have filled one's idea of an ancient porter of a city gate; such spiritual cities, I should say, as ...

— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu

... her girdle another small key, which she inserted in a keyhole in the centre of a massive lock. The great bolt seemed wonderfully hung, for the moment the small key was turned, the bolts of the great lock moved noiselessly and the iron doors swung open. ...

— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker

... secret it held in its dead heart. Yes, the box was there! The box in which lay the outbursts of a girl's fancy and imaginings. With a mischievous laugh Cynthia removed the old letters and put them in the bag that hung from a girdle at her waist. Then she walked on to the old Walden Place. There a shock awaited her. What had happened? The crumbling walls had fallen in many places; but there were props and scaffoldings, too! Sandy had begun ...

— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

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